


Saving Max (2020 Remake)

by ShatteredSky



Category: Demi Lovato (Musician)
Genre: Childhood Trauma, Fanfiction, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institutions, Multi, Rehabilitation, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:33:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28112463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShatteredSky/pseuds/ShatteredSky
Summary: Saving Max -Remake (2020)---Max is a 15-year-old resident of a mental health treatment center for troubled youth. Max has not uttered a single word since she was 10 years old, the day she became a ward of DHS. Her life since has been an unstable chaotic story of foster homes and treatment centers, and she is about to reach the end of the line. But a celebrity visit will change her life.---This is an original character fan fiction. You do not have to be a fan or know of Demi Lovato to enjoy this story. This story is highly focused on an original character.** TRIGGER WARNING FOR GRAPHIC CONTENT OF MENTAL HEALTH, PM WITH CLARIFICATION **





	Saving Max (2020 Remake)

"It's really not the end of the world, Max," the nurse insists, looking at me with a smile filled with disguised exasperation.

_Not the end of the world? Darn._

Normal people probably start off their days with a bowl of cereal, or toast, maybe even in front of the TV. But my days are nowhere near any definition of normal—not with the whole being a fifteen-year-old living in a mental hospital thing I got going on. So instead of pancakes or cartoons, I get the luxury of starting my day popping pills with a nurse whose false kindness is held together by a paycheck.

Yeah, yeah, I didn't stutter. Mental hospital. That's right.

For the last 62 days I have been a "resident" at ShoreSide: Los Angeles Youth Mental Rehabilitation Center. Or as I more accurately call it, "ShitSide".

Despite the wordy, luxurious-sounding name that sounds like a sunny coastal dreamland, the center was not actually located on the beach, ironically. From the steel bars that cover the window of my room, there is no beach or ocean in sight.

Oh, but don't worry, the halls and rooms are filled with captivating photos and paintings of sandy beaches and crashing ocean tides along with colorful "inspirational" quotes to warm our cold dead hearts such as,

"Live your best life!" "Don't forget to smile!"

And I kid you not, "Live, Laugh, Love."

As if cute quotes in fun font and pretty beach scenes are going to make us forget that we are essentially prisoners in a sterile mental hospital.

But as far as hospitals go, I've seen worse.

So yeah, my days are a little different.

"It's just your medicine," the nurse before me offers again, scooting the glass of water towards me encouragingly.

The tray before me is clustered with half a dozen pills, all of various shapes, and colors. If I cross my eyes, I can almost pretend I'm looking through a kaleidoscope. I like to play a game with myself called "guess the street value" where I try to guess how much my daily drug intake would sell for on the streets.

_Xanax...abilify...citalopram...buspirone..._

"Come on, Max. The faster you take your meds the faster we can get to breakfast," the nurse chimed, borderline begging at this point. I love it when they beg. It makes it even more fun to completely ignore their wishes.

Man, if she thinks using breakfast is a motivator, she really must not have read my chart.

Let's just say I'm not a huge fan of eating. Or obeying orders, or talking--hell, I'm not a huge fan of anything. But, because I am in fact, an enthusiast of drugs, I do, eventually, swallow each pill,

one

by

one.

The walk from my room to the cafeteria is a series of blindingly-white halls. White walls. White floors. Fluorescent lights. The smell of disinfectant. Have I been here for weeks? Months? Years? The monotonous routine that is supposed to provide me with structure blends each day into another.  
As we reach the end of the hall, there is a mural interrupting the endless white wall. The painting depicts two outstretched hands grasping each other, with a banner reading: "Hope, Health, Home", which apparently is ShitSide's motto or something.

As we pass the mural, I reach out and run my fingernail across the surface of the paint. Gliding across its surface as I walk, until it snags on the corner of the "H" of "Hope", breaking off a chip of paint. The chip flutters--weightless and dainty--to the ground. I drag my next footstep over it, crushing it to a powder.

The cafeteria is full. Bench tables fill the room, and on them are girls of all types with their multicolored trays and multicolored clothes. ShitSide has a little bit of everyone.

There's the preppy girly girls, the attention whores with eating disorders or daddy issues or something. They cry a lot in therapy and laugh a lot everywhere else. They are always in groups of bright colors and drama.

There's the emo/goth/edge-lord scene. The all-black-ers. Lots of black fishnets and silver piercings. Always can be found cutting their hair in the bathroom with a contraband plastic knife and leaving dark lines of brooding poetic graffiti on any available surface.

Then there's the plain outcasts that either straddle the other groups or completely don't fit into them. The true rejects. They tend to be quieter, and can be found in groups of 3. Constantly talking crap about the emos and preps while still desperately trying to be accepted by one or the other.

I walk in and zero-in on the first empty table and flop down at it and immediately zone out. My nurse sighs under her breath as she goes to get me a tray of food.

"Well hey there, Maxy-waxy," a sarcastically sweet voice meets my ears. A silent growl boils inside of me as I recognize the voice. I make no move to acknowledge her and continue staring blankly into the nearest wall.

"Aw, Maxy, not even gonna say hi? Really hurts my feelings, ya'know?" McKenna slides into the spot in front of me, eclipsing my view of the wall and forcing herself into my focus. Rage flares within me, but I remain as still as stone.

McKenna is the ShitSide queen. She has the iconic blonde white-girl look. The bleach-blonde hair coming just over her shoulders. Always chewing a piece of gum between her puffy pink lips. She'd be the type to have every boy falling all over her, just so she could turn them all down. You know the type.  
McKenna is a master manipulator. The nurses love her, the other residents want to please her, and when no one is looking—she is the devil itself. Whether she's bored or just has some sadistic need, I know she's personally responsible for sending multiple innocent girls to a max-security mental ward by planting contraband in their rooms or pushing them over the edge with mental torture.

She likes me, and by that I mean I am her entertainment. She's determined to get me to break, but so far I am winning, which I think is starting to piss her off.

I can see McKenna fixing me with a squinty-eyed stare as she takes a bite out of her toast. I continue my disconnected stare straight through her.

"It must be so dull inside there," McKenna hums, pointing the corner of her toast towards my forehead. "Never able to say how you feel, or what you think..." McKenna stops, " You do still have thoughts right? A voice inside your head?" She grins an ugly grin, "Or did that voice stop working too?"

I have mastered the art of playing dead while being alive. It's how I spend nearly all of my time. I imagine my ears have volume controls, and I turn them all the way down until the world around me sounds like it's underwater--a distorted garble.  
I relax my eyes until my peripheral vision is fogged, and the shapes and colors before me don't matter. And I withdraw entirely, erasing all sensation and thought until I am nothing but a dial tone and the end of a wrong number.

But no matter how hard I try I can't hang up the phone completely. I am still aware, I just choose not to care.

So, in fact, I do hear the nurse approaching with my tray of food, I hear her happily greet McKenna like an old friend. And it makes my stomach turn. I hear McKenna tell the nurse, "I am hanging out with my friend Max, even though she's not a very talkative, poor thing, I would hate for her to be lonely."

And I hear the nurse melt, falling head over heels for McKenna's show. McKenna then convinces the nurse, through her sickening sweet talk, to leave the food tray with us and that she will make sure I eat. And the nurse obliges and leaves, the fool.

"You don't mind, do you Max?" McKenna sweetly askes once the nurse is gone, the sarcastic smile on her face just asking to be punched. "Cause all you'd have to do is say no," she adds, grinning into her next bite of toast.  
McKenna takes a secret glance around the room, making sure there are no eyes watching us, before she reaches out to my tray and slowly dips her ugly finger straight into my untouched bowl of oatmeal.

She lifted her finger out, sticky oats clotted and dripping off, " Sometimes I wonder..." she hums, reaching across the table. My jaw clenched as she slowly rubs her disgusting oatmeal-finger across my cheek.

"...what terrible thing is in your head, that's fucked up enough for you to forget your voice?" Mckenna smirks, quirking a perfectly plucked eyebrow.

I am sitting as still as stone as McKenna paints my face with oatmeal, but inside I am bursting. It is taking everything I have to suppress the trembles of rage boiling in my bones.

"What have you done, Max?" McKenna asks, her smirk turning into a slit-eyed glare, "Kill someone?"

 _About to_ , I think to myself, clenching my fists under the table.

In fact, the only thing keeping me from knocking the vicious smile right off McCUNTa's face right now is that would be exactly what she wants--and as a rule, I never do something that someone wants me to do. And the fact that as miserable as ShitSide is, it's somehow still better than Juvy or a max security ward. And trust me, I would know.

McKenna, finished with her painting, casually wipes her fingers off on a napkin with a satisfied smirk on her face.

As if on cue, the nurse reappears, "Everything okay over here?"

McKenna smiles, all of her cruel nature magically transforming to sweet innocence as she replies, "Yep! Max is even eating her breakfast...although she made a little mess."

The nurse looks at my face in surprise, seems confused, but doesn't argue with McKenna's statement. Who wouldn't trust the little angel? B a r f. The nurse hands me a napkin, which I snatch from her and quickly use to wipe the smeared oatmeal off my face.

McCunt, finished with her games, stands up from the table, and shoots me a savage wink and sticks out her tongue.

I can hear my pulse raging in my ears. My muscles are tensed, ready to fire, ready for action.

I watch McKenna walk away. I blink. I can see myself lunging over the table. I blink and I can see my fists flying. I blink. I can see the color of McKenna's blood hitting the polished white floor. I blink and see the look of terror on her perfect little manicured face.

I blink... and she's gone, merging back with her group of preppy girl friends.

—————————————————————————————————

ShitSide functions like a clock. Part of their recovery program is having a strict, repetitive routine. Every hour of every day is labeled. Some sort of "routine grounds the mind" bullshit or something. My typical routine is rotating around group therapies, guided activities, one-on-one counseling with my psychiatrist, periods of "free reflection time", and of course, meals.

Each one is the same for me, really. Just a lot of sitting silently, zoning out, ignoring anyone who tries to get me to engage, including my psychologist. These events are only differentiated by getting up and walking to the next.

So yeah,

That's my life pretty much summed up.

Totally un-extraordinary.

In fact, probably one of the most uninteresting lives you could possibly lead.

Nothing could possibly make my life in this sickening hell-hole interesting,

At least that was what I thought before she came. And then everything changed.


End file.
